


Partnerships

by stads02



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Artistic!Illya, F/M, Highschool AU, RichKid!Napoleon, Sorry Not Sorry, StreetKid!Gaby
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-13
Updated: 2015-10-18
Packaged: 2018-04-26 03:53:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4989235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stads02/pseuds/stads02
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All Napoleon Solo wants to do is escape his family and steal what he sees.<br/>Illya Kuryakin regrets every moment he's not in Russia with his mother.<br/>Gaby Teller is just happy to have a full belly and a safe place to sleep.</p><p>Or the Highschool AU of our favorite bunch of rulebreakers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. It's For Your Own Good

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired from the tumblr post:  
> http://mamalaz.tumblr.com/post/129649025342/man-from-uncle-high-school-au-illya-is-the  
> By mamalaz

Nirvana screamed into his ears as the woodlands burst into fields and orchards.

Napoleon looked outside the window to see freshly trimmed grass and the small lake on the grounds that he’d skinny dipped into many times when the moon was the only source of light. Instead there were ducks in it, and like every blasted year he’d been here, the Head of School had a loaf of bread and was feeding them. It was like he didn’t have anything better to do than greet new students. Napoleon thumbed the man’s stolen rugby championship ring in his blazer. He probably didn’t.

He glanced back at the sky and it was just like it had been all the other years. It’d rained last night and the odd drop still fell from the flat gray skies.

Napoleon felt his chauffeur's gaze on him, “It’s for your own good, sir,” he saw Andrew speak, unable to hear the words through the music.

He closed his eyes and waited for Andrew to open his door and the cold rush of fall air that would come with it.

“I’ll get your bags, sir.”

Napoleon sighed before tucking in one of his earbuds into his collar, leaving only one to run beneath his dress shirt to snake up his ear and distract him.

He looked up to the very familiar red brick building of the boys dorms. Trimmed hedges surrounded the gardens and a fountain gushed water. The opening doors were fine despite being broken last year and glistened with varnish.

How perfect. How disgusting.

He was escorted to registration, got his room key and schedule, and briefly spoke to some of the boys who he could still consider his friends. All around him there was noise. Parents hugging freshmen with rapid last minute reminders, juniors high fiving their friends welcome, even the school mascot –no doubt the poor kid in there was sweating- a Spartan to spark school spirit.

Napoleon would have a room at the end of the dorm, at the utmost edge of the happy hype in the crowd. It would be small, with a kitchen, and for one person. A punishment. A reminder.

Andrew put his bags in his large, solitary room and clap him on the shoulders.

“I’ll miss you, sir.”

“I feel that you’ll be the only one who will.”

Andrew gave him a disapproving glaze, before digging into his pocket, “You forgot this.”

The small silver signet ring flashed despite the dim lighting of the room.

“You represent the Solo family, no matter what you do, or where you are.”

“Right,” he smiled at the small ring in his palm.

“I have faith that you’ll be allowed a gold ring this year, Napoleon. Your father wishes for you to earn it back.”

Anger flooded him.

“But only if I behave.”

“That’s right. Be good, yes?”

Napoleon smiled tightly and opened the door for Andrew.

“I’ll be good.”

Napoleon watched his chauffeur’s figure disappear into the crowd, as he pulled out two wallets from his pocket. He took out forty dollars from each.

“I suppose I should return these then.”

 

__________________________

 

Despite having patched up the hole in the wall on Saturday, Illya could still feel traces of the fall wind coming inside. He would have to fix it, as there was a limit to how many layers you could wear inside before being unable to work.

The cold seeped into him as he opened the envelope to reveal a green card, papers, and an invitation to a boarding school. The school sounded fancy, as his Russian tongue struggled over the English letters.

“No.”

“Illyusha.” His mother ran her hand through his hair, “It’s for your own good.”

“I will not go to America.”

“You should, you must.” He stroked his hair again, before going back to the pot of bubbling soup, and stirring in the chopped celery, “You are a boy full of potential.”

Illya shuffled through the papers that covered the whole of the table, and picked one out of the bunch, “the FSB seems to agree with you. America does not.”

His mother stopped stirring, “You cannot work with the FSB.”

“Why not?”

“They will do horrible things to you.”

“Like they did to father, yes. I know,” he spat.

“He made his decisions, and you can make yours. He paid for his.”

Illya looked down at his hands, “And you are still paying for his. I must stay, and help you.”

She dipped the ladle into the pot and poured the thick broth into a bowl and set it down in front of him, “No, not anymore.”

“But-”

“It is every mother’s dream to see their children be happy and accomplish as much as they can. Staying in Russia and helping pay the rent will not do that. You must go to America. Now eat up, before it gets cold.”

Illya silently looked at the letter of acceptance from Crawford Academy and shuffled through the other papers in the package, “This is not cheap.”

“I know.”

The similar pain of the last six years swept through him. His mother didn’t come home some nights and would appear in the late hours of the morning smelling like scotch and sex.

Illya would hug her, upon coming home from his job, and do the house chores while she slept off the memories of the night.

He would not go to America at the price of that.

“I am not okay with this.”

“And I am,” she said, blowing on the spoon of steaming soup, “I have seen your drawings when you have the time. I see your work in Art class. Your talent cannot go to waste,” she paused, “I would sacrifice everything for your happiness and wellbeing, Illyusha.”

“What if you’ve sacrificed enough?” he took her cold hand in his, and squeezed it softly.

“Never,” she smiled and rested her small hand on his, “Now go, and pack your suitcase.”

 

 __________________________

 

“You have got to be kidding me.”

“I’m not.”

Gaby eyed the man standing beside the car warily, “Why would they want me?”

“Why do you think?”

Gaby looked down to her oil covered hands and her dirty green mechanic jumpsuit, “No matter how good I am, I am sure that they can find a mechanic of equal value who didn’t grow up on the streets,” she looked the man who’d introduced himself as Waverly, the Crawford Academy Insignia on his tie seemed to glare at her, “After all, I’d smell like hard work and dirt and ruin the vibe.”

Waverly didn’t flinch, “You seem to have a hatred towards the wealthy.”

“Really?” Gaby narrowed her eyes as she tightened a bolt, “Perhaps you would, if you ate from their garbage bins for years.”

“I apologize for whatever occurred in your past, but think of it as this. If you have been eating from our bins for your life, this is the opportunity to sit at the table and eat the five course meal.”

“I think I’d get sick to my stomach. Too much rich food.”

Waverly shrugged, “The offer is there, for the taking. If you wish to accept it, that would fabulous,” he paused, “Full ride scholarship, a fully stocked garage for your use. It would be a shame to waste your talent. Going to Crawford...it would be for your own good.”

“What’s in it for you?”

“A mechanic with real life experience. As you can imagine, many of our students don’t have that. You’ll be the breath of fresh air, so to speak. It’s a new program. Lots of scholarships, and extending our reach to other countries. Our graduates don’t have a world view, despite having read about it in their textbooks. We plan on changing that.”

Gaby leaned on the hood of the car, “Will I get my own room?”

“Yes.”

“Will I be fed?”

“Three square meals a day.”

“Can I leave...” she picked her nail with the edge of a screwdriver, “...any time I want?”

“We’re a school, not a prison.”

She narrowed her eyes once again, “And what about my cars?”

“They can be transported to the garage, but you will be expected to go to class and not spend all your time there.”

“And I suppose there’s a uniform?”

“It will be paid for.”

“How about living expenses?” she challenged, “Clothes, toiletries, furniture.”

“I’m sure we could arrange pocket money. It was considered at the board meeting for students in your situation,” for the first time in the conversation he looked annoyed, “We’ve thought our decision through.”

Gaby looked at the man in the crisp pinstripe suit and glasses. He’d already opened up his briefcase to show that he had the necessary documents ready for her to sign. Slowly, she offered her right hand.

“So long as I don’t have to pay a cent, and you keep your promise that this boarding school isn’t a prison, you’ve got yourself a new student.”

Waverly pumped her hand once, “Excellent,” he checked his watch, “The school term starts in two days.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some housekeeping:
> 
> The KGB shut down in 1991 (according to wiki) and so the FSB is one of the organizations that was created in it's stead.


	2. Get a Hand(le) on Things

There was a small list of things that could upset Illya yet it seemed that the list of things that aggravated him grew exponentially larger with each and every thing he experienced in his short sixteen years.  
  
He would be replacing small loud dogs with American airports at the top of the list.  
  
Americans were loud. They were friendly enough but not to him. And perhaps worst of all, they were fat. He looked in disgust at the lines at fast food restaurants. Illya listened to a man next to him exclaim he was starving. He knew hunger like the back of his hand and the overweight man most likely never experienced it. He would never know the ache and pain that seeped away your strength and made you curse the world.  
  
His long legs were a blessing as they could carry him away from this place faster. Then he could deal with a two hour car ride to this Crawford Academy that wanted him so much.  
  
"Excuse me, sir."  
  
Illya turned and glared at a woman with her hair in a tight bun.  
  
"We are doing a random selection search and would like to see your bag. Let's see your papers."  
  
Perhaps Americans were the worst not because of their love for greasy food but instead because of their paranoia. Yes, that was it, Illya decided upon eyeing the holstered handgun resting in her utility belt. It made it clear he had no choice but to let them ruin his perfectly folded clothes before nodding and letting him go to the fresh autumn air.  
  
He zipped up his jacket and walked to the utmost end of the pick-up area to where a dark car was waiting for him like promised. A man with sunglasses smiled and extended his right hand.  
  
"Illya Kuryakin?"  
  
"Yes," he said in Russian before correcting himself to English, "Yes."  
  
"Good. I'm Waverly. I've got a busy day today and so do you, as we need to get you fitted with a uniform.” Illya saw the man look him up and down briefly, “I’m sure we can find one that fits.”  
  
Illya highly doubted that Crawford Academy would have custom sized size US15 shoes in nice leather. He was content with shrugging his answer and leaving them to the sound of the radio as he pushed the seat as far back as it could go.

It was a pleasant car with excellent suspension, and after the long flight he was content to sink into the seat, and let the calm movements of the car lull him to sleep.

He was woken up by the cawing of crows, and the car slowing down.

“Ah, excellent, you’re awake.”

“Yes.”

“Do you need help with your bags?”

“No.” Illya didn’t. His duffel bag was packed with all the clothes he owned and his messenger’s bag, a bag made of more duct tape and patchwork than original material for anything else. It did not weigh much.

“Well let’s introduce you to your dorm then, yes?”

He silently nodded, and followed Waverly into a large brick building that was slightly farther from other similar styled buildings. Waverly opened the doors and a wall of sound hit him. Illya narrowed his eyes.

To his immediate left and right many Latinos lounged with their doors open. Despite Waverly being a staff of sorts they did not move to clear the thick air of smoke in some of the rooms that stank of cigarettes. They chattered in Spanish too fast for Illya, but they paused their conversations to nod at Waverly when he walked by. As he followed Waverly down the hall and the loud bass of Spanish music turned to a large group of boys and girls playing cards in the middle of the hall. The Chinese flag pinned to the front of a door was the bold unspoken claim of a turf war and the tenants of the dorm.

Illya was relieved to find no more large groups in the dorms. He heard some girls laughing behind one door, and saw two boys quietly reading books together but nothing else. Considering he hadn’t seen a child with the air of money, and every student spoke a language other than English for their first, it was clear that the dorm was for transfer students. He briefly hoped that there would be another Russian to talk to but that was squandered when Waverly handed him a key ring at the door of what was going to be his room. It was at the very end of the hall.

“You’ll need to go to the uniform shop at five, before dinner, which is at six. Curfew is eleven.”

Illya nodded slowly, taking the map, and the keys in his hand as he looked at the wooden door to where he would live for the next two years of his life.

His boots thumped on the wood floors unpleasantly as he surveyed the room. It was small. It was livable. He felt relief to see a very small kitchenette, and a television in the corner. The couch looked more appealing as the bed was too small in the equally small bedroom, and the bathroom could have doubled as a closet. It smelled musty, and in need of a clean, and some care. It reminded him of home.

The necklace he’d tucked under his jacket felt heavier than ever. His left hand toyed with it briefly, knowing if he opened it he would see a picture of the times their family was three instead of two, and it would smell like the soap his mother used. 

Illya decided to take a shower before anything else. He'd been promised expensive soaps and shampoos, all paid for by the Academy. It wasn't that he didn't appreciate the gesture -he thought as he pulled the curtain closed and stared at the nozzle that was at his eye level and accepted the fact all his showers would be taken hunching over- but he wasn't so poor to afford not even basic cleaning products. He wasn't going to complain, as he revelled in standing under water so hot it almost burned his skin without having to worry about water bills. Illya felt strangely cleaner than he had in awhile as he stepped out of the shower with a towel wrapped around his waist. 

He checked his old  watch that he'd left on the vanity for safety. He had thirty minutes to find where this uniform shop was. Plenty of time to find it, as he hunted down a warmer pair of socks and a long sleeved shirt. 

The map Waverly gave him took him on a gravel path through many similar looking houses, and he realized that he was following a small girl in the same manner about twenty feet up. They both held a map, and looked periodically at it before looking around again.

“Are you lost?”

“I don’t think that a lost person should give advice to somebody who is simply,” she paused evidently looking for a word, “um, misguided.” Her soft voice was sharp, and laced with an accent.

He unintentionally found himself attempting to make his accent thicker, and look larger, the same way he did on the streets of Moscow when it was dark, “And I do not think that a 'simply misguided person' should deny being lost.”

She smiled thinly at him, “Only a man with Russia running through his veins could insult a poor woman who cannot find her way.”

The cold wind bit through his jacket a bit harder, “And only an overconfident German would consider insulting a much larger opponent.”

He let his ice blue eyes stare at her deep brown ones with a casual practiced nonchalance.

“I’m looking for the medical center. They need to prod me with their needles.”

“I saw it a bit back. You should look harder.”

“Pig,” she spat in German, but she nodded her thanks.

“Dwarf,” he answered back in her own language.

If she was shocked that he knew German she hid it very well.

Illya whistled the first few lines he knew of the German national anthem, and he was rewarded with hearing her mutter beneath her breath as she passed by.

“Asshole.”

His lips twitched, and threated to smile until he found the uniform shop.

Illya did smile when the kind woman in the shop spent an extra five minutes digging in the back for a pair of shoes that did not pinch his toes. When he tied the laces, and stood up, the woman gushed, and pushed him to the mirror.

Illya expected to see a child with wild pale eyes, and messy hair. A child that skipped one day of school a week to work, and that carried a knife in his pocket at all times.

The face that stared back at him looked like it'd slept well recently. It looked confident, and comfortable in the dark gray slacks, and white shirt, tucked in but with rolled up sleeves. He looked down to black polished shoes that he'd grown fond of in a few quick minutes.

This Illya didn't look desperate for another meal.

The locket from his mother felt heavy on his chest again, as he remembered her words.

_I would sacrifice everything for your happiness, and wellbeing._

He smiled at the woman politely, and left the store still in his new uniform. 

He same tension that he'd been keeping low, low so his mother could send him off properly, low so he could get through airport security, low for this Crawford Academy. The red hot anger bubbled over he wasn't going to keep it in anymore. He felt his hands shake. Before he knew it he'd walked over to a tree, and his left knuckles were bleeding from the bark. He caught his breath. The anger turned to a simmer. It wasn't gone, it was never gone, but it was bearable. 

Illya cradled his hand looked at the steeple, with the large bell on the inside, and clockface on the outside then down to the campus, and many red brick buildings of Crawford Academy, and grim determination filled him.

He would be sure to graduate as quickly as possible to make sure she would not give up anything else.

Her sacrifice would not go to waste. 

 

 ---

 

Napoleon sat next to the window in the seat at the corner of the back of the classroom. Two years ago he’d carved out his name in the corner of the desk, and ever since nobody touched it.

Unless they were of course, some gorgeous looking women who giggled in front of him when he showed them the gold watch of Ivan Kivenbaker on his left wrist. The poor new kid didn’t even notice it was gone when he shook his hand.

“See, it’s all with the hands,” he grinned, “Inexperienced hands won’t do the job.”

The two girls giggled.

“Here, let me show you.”

He noticed his seat neighbor, a boy who looked like he belonged in a linebacker’s uniform instead of a school one with a pencil in his right hands sketching in a notebook. It stopped, and his blue eyes quickly flashed to Napoleon’s wrist, and then to his old one before going back to his work.

Napoleon took a big show of taking the chunky watch off his wrist, and taking one of the girl’s hand, and sliding it slowly on her wrist.

“Is that too tight?”

“It’s just fine.”

Napoleon then looked at the other girl, “See, now the key is distraction. We like to look at pretty things, or things that need our attention. I can use my face,” he smiled, “Or I can use my hands.” He waved his left hand in a circle. “See? Both of you looked at my hand, and didn’t even notice that I put a pen in your blazer pocket with my right hand.”

They both turned found the pen, and gasped.

“Or let me show you how –oh!” Napoleon leaned in to the other girl, and looked at her earnestly before turning his attention to her brown hair, “You have a piece of fluff in your hair, let me get that for you.”

He swept aside her hair as he picked off the imaginary piece of lint, and took her necklace at the same time. She wouldn’t be needing it.

“But going back to what I was saying with the watch,” he reached back to the watch for their attention as he slyly tucked the necklace in his blazer pocket, then went to shake the girl’s hand, all while moving his hands while he spoke. “It’s very easy to take in a handshake. People expect the pressure of the handshake, and so they focus on that. You confuse the brain with the pressure of the area into thinking that the loss of pressure of the watch is normal. They forget about it instantly.”

He snapped his fingers, “Look at your shoulder. The left.”

There was Ivan’s gold watch, resting on her blazer.

The both clapped as Napoleon took the watch back, and clipped it on his wrist.

“You’re going to give it back to him, right?”

The boy next to him coughed suddenly, and Napoleon did not like the smug smile he had.

Napoleon smiled as good naturedly as he could, “I’ll give it back when he realizes it’s gone.”

They laughed again as their history teacher walked in, and kids found their seats in the class.

“Good morning class! Welcome to AP Grade Eleven –so grade twelve- World History. I hope we have a good year with no troublemakers.”

Napoleon smiled back to the professor when he glanced his way.

They were handed a syllabus with the year; World War Two, the Cold War, American History in the 20th century, and other subjects. Napoleon hardly touched the packet as he looked outside to the pond with the head of school in his daily morning routine of feeding the ducks.

He spotted a flash of gold on the man’s wrist. A watch. A thing to steal. A thing he should steal. A thing that he had to steal. He tried to find another thing to focus on. His hands briefly clenched around the stolen necklace. Napoleon relaxed. He'd gotten his fill today. Two items per day, he'd promised himself. He'd tried to slowly wean himself off it but it wasn't really working.

He’d taken two pieces of jewelry over one thousand dollars, and six that would still fetch a good price in the last twenty four hours.

After all he had promised to be good.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Armie Hammer's shoes really are size 15. They're freaking huge. Illya probably had many problems finding a good pair of shoes.


End file.
